ANSWER: Auschwitz already had a deserted army
barracks, and here was the opportunity to expand the camp for purposes other
than the concentration of prisoners. Finally, major railroad lines could easily
reach Auschwitz from numerous European cities.

2. How many camps were at Auschwitz, and how did they differ from
each other?

ANSWER: Auschwitz had three camps: Auschwitz
I, the concentration camp for “enemies of the Reich” who were mainly political
or national opponents of the Nazis; Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the death camp,
which existed primarily for killing Jews and Gypsies as well as Soviet prisoners
of war and, later, Poles; Auschwitz III-Monowitz, the forced labor camp, which
was the site of the Buna synthetic rubber factory.

3. Why were doctors important at the arrival of the trains at Auschwitz?

ANSWER: Doctors determined who seemed physically
capable of “productive work,” that is, who could last for a while as a slave
laborer in the Buna plant or one of the 35 satellite labor camps. These were,
the doctors claimed, medical decisions.

4. What was Zyklon B?

ANSWER: Zyklon B was a prussic acid gas, normally
used as an insecticide, which became the least expensive and most efficient
way of killing Jews.

5. Approximately how many Jews were killed at Auschwitz?

ANSWER: Approximately 1.1 million Jews died
at Auschwitz.

6. Why were the Jews and Gypsies murdered at Auschwitz?

ANSWER: Apart from all the racial theories,
in the end, Jews and Gypsies were killed simply because they existed. They
represented no political threat to Germany; European culture and society;
and they were not an organized military force.

Slowly read the essay “Arrival in Auschwitz” aloud to students. Tell the
students you are speaking directly to each one of them. Instruct students
not to ask questions during the reading.

Discussion:

After seeing the videotape and reading the essay, “Arrival in Auschwitz,”
pose the questions which follow the reading.

Questions:

1. What do you think was the most frightening part of the deportation
to, and arrival at, Auschwitz?

Suggestions for discussion: Responses
will vary. Some possibilities are: the separation from family and friends,
the murder of a loved one, the total uncertainty and alien nature of the experience,
the confusion and pandemonium, the claustrophobic darkness and lack of air,
the filth and smells, etc.

2. What is a “rite of passage”? Can you think of any examples of
rites of passage that you have experienced or will experience?

Suggestions for discussion: A rite
of passage is a significant event that marks the moving from one phase of
life to another. Movement from adolescence to adulthood is one example that
many cultures celebrate with a ceremony or ritual such as a communion. More
secular rites of passage are graduation or marriage, for example.

3. If a rite of passage indicates a significant move from one phase
of a person’s life to another, such as from adolescence to adulthood, why
is the cattle car experience considered a rite
of passage?

Suggestions for discussion: Traditional
rites of passage symbolize growth and preparation for another stage of life.
They are treated as initiations into life. The cattle car experience for Jews
during the Holocaust represented an initiation into the world of death. The
killing began in those cars. As one historian has noted: “the trains
were where extermination began. The Jews boarded them living; they left them
dead or dying.”

4. As a result of the train transport, life has completely changed
for the people on the videotape and the person in the essay. What has changed
and how will life be different forever?

Suggestions for discussion: Asking
what has changed is almost a rhetorical question. The answer is “everything.”
These people, as teenagers, have lost everything--parents, siblings, friends,
family, home, sense of well-being, any feeling of human worth and, probably, faith. The dead would never be brought back, and there would never be an opportunity
for a proper good-bye. The community would never be reconstituted. The sense
of well-being would remain uncertain. Some would regain faith, while others
would not. “We stepped onto the platform and were on another planet,” noted
one survivor. “Part of us has stayed there ever since.”